Edinburgh Notes
by J
About This Novel
"Edinburgh Notes", written in 1879, is one of Stevenson's most interesting and personal works. Stevenson was born in Edinburgh, where he studied and lived. He himself was to Edinburgh what Joyce was to Dublin, always concerned about it but always at a distance during his lifetime. He once said: "There is no star as lovely and moving as the street lights of Edinburgh. If I forget you, Edinburgh, then please let my writing right hand lose its flexibility!" This book is composed of a series of prose, from Edinburgh's Old Town, Parliament Square to the New Town, Calton Hill and the Pentland Hills, unfolding a unique landscape painting. The work is both a travelogue and interspersed with social commentary, and is overflowing with the author's feelings about his hometown. The Edinburgh in the book is a three-dimensional city with dramatic contrasts - a city spread out between the old and the new, between wealth and famine, between mansions and countryside. In some chapters, the author eulogizes the beauty of the city and its unique spiritual temperament with a sense of nostalgia, while in chapters such as "Legendary Stories", he focuses on the dark and gloomy side of Edinburgh, such as the alcoholic lower class, social scandals, and the evil on the fringes of the city. Only a knowledgeable person who truly loves Edinburgh can tell all this honestly without falling into the clichés of critical literature. In short, this is the work of an Edinburgh "insider". This book was introduced by the Gutenberg Project and translated into Chinese for the first time.
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